The estimate of structural unemployment has declined over the past year in line with the decline in the actual unemployment rate. In the figure below, the solid (black) line shows the U.S. unemployment rate declining from nearly 10 percent in 2009:Q4 to about 7 ½ percent today. The dotted (red) line is the estimate of structural unemployment; it too has declined over that time and the latest estimate of structural unemployment is 6.2 percent. There is a lot of concern about U.S. long-term unemployment. In this case too, there has been a decline in the estimate of the structural component of long-term unemployment, but it is more gradual than in the case of total unemployment.

If there was an argument for more heavily weighting supply side measures more heavily than demand side measures (on which count I’m dubious), those arguments have dissipated.

Over the 41 months since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, 91 percent of the increase in employment is due to full-time work. This pattern has roughly held over the past twelve months, with 86 percent of the increase in employment due to full-time work.

The authors also quote a FRB SF study: “We have shown that part-time work is not unusually high relative to levels observed in the past, most notably in the aftermath of the early 1980s recession.”

They conclude:

There is no systematic evidence that employers are shifting employees to just below 30 hours per week. CEA has analyzed the Current Population Survey to estimate worker hours in more narrow ranges than those published by the BLS. This analysis indicates that there has been no noticeable shift in employment just above or below the 30 hours per week threshold, a conclusion that has also been corroborated by outside analysts.

This figure illustrates their assertion:

Figure from CEA (Sept. 2013).Hence, while the Obamacare-causes-part-time-employment-increases meme dominates in certain circles (I usually see it in listings of anecdotes, and polls), I don’t think the data is determinative on this count, and if there is an effect, it so far is not detectable. Over the longer term, it may go the way of the “QE and hyperinflation” meme. [1]